Republican State Rep in Oregon Flips Parties to Democrat

We'll take all the help we can get, and Oregon State Representative Cyrus Javadi just gave the people of his district a little more help by flipping from being a Republican to a Democrat. As reported recently by The Advocate, Javadi, representing the 32nd district, made the announcement last Friday that he was switching parties and would seek reelection as a Democrat.

Citing influencing factors like book bans, his gay son, and "leaders who’d rather go viral than go fix the roads," Javadi's flip brings the Democratic majority in the Oregon House of Representatives to 37 out of 60 seats.

Javadi wrote on his Substack "I know many Republicans who still share my values, but the party apparatus is headed somewhere else entirely. It’s not about governing. It’s about burning things down. It’s about isolating minority communities when politically convenient. It’s about waving the Constitution when it helps your argument and ignoring it when it doesn’t. That’s not conservative. That’s opportunistic. And it corrodes everything it touches."

The Advocate points out that Javadi has had several proposals applauded by Democrats but not his fellow Republicans, such as Medicaid benefits for children and maintaining rural hospitals. He cites the GOP reason for their lack of support being "not because the policies were flawed, but because helping me deliver for my district didn’t fit the Republican Party’s agenda."

He also cites Republicans' adherence to fueling their fake outrage around culture wars: "If outrage were a renewable energy source, Oregon could power the grid with Republican Facebook comments alone....Then came the so-called 'book bill.' Republicans framed it as stopping pornography in schools, ignoring the fact parents already can challenge any book. The real issue was whether kids — gay kids like my son, Black kids, Muslim kids — could still find stories on the shelves that reflect their lives."

Anyone else notice this guy isn't too hard on the eyes?

And here’s the thing: opposing this kind of censorship isn’t about being 'woke.' It’s about being American. The First Amendment doesn’t exist to protect the majority view; it exists to protect the minority, the unpopular, the voices some people would rather not hear. Conservatives used to understand that silencing ideas is the first step toward the tyranny of the majority. I haven’t forgotten.

Javadi's decision seems to be more about what's pragmatic and back to basics, and less about following a set cultural or political paradigm. "Yes, I’m switching to the Democratic Party. Not because Democrats are perfect, they’re not. But they’re acting like a governing party. They’re willing to debate ideas on the merits. To defend constitutional principles. To protect minority rights. To do the unglamorous, often thankless work of actually fixing things."

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